I heard from on of the producers yesterday, January 12, 2017, that the show, UFOs: The Hidden Evidence, is now supposed to air sometime in March as opposed to the January 24th, 2017 premiere that was originally planned. The show is still scheduled to air on The American Heroes Channel. I will keep you posted and thanks for your continued support, patience, and understanding.

The new TV Show that I taped back in late August is called UFOS: The Hidden Evidence.It will air on the American Heroes Channel on January 24th, 2017 so please check your local listings. And now on to another topic that is near and dear to me, diversity and inclusion. I will be working as an adjunct professor for Western Carolina University beginning tomorrow, January 10, 2017, teaching cross cultural counseling to grad students who are going into the counseling field. So far, this is for the Spring semester only, from January until early May. I’m looking forward to it! Wishing all an amazing 2017!!!

Last night, October 9, 2016, I appeared on the radio show, Beyond The Strange with show host Dave Cruz. What a delightful conversation we had about UFOs, religion, and life in general. Dave is truly a class act and was very gracious with my coughing occassionally because its allergy season for me here in N.C. Thank you all who listened in and tweeted me as well. I really felt welcomed. The show can be heard at:

I just arrived back home after shooting 4-6 episodes of a new tv series called, UFOs: The Lost Evidence. The show is scheduled to air sometime in mid January on the American Heroes Channel ( formally the Military Channel). The crew was wonderful and very professional as my episodes were shot in Austin, Texas. From what I saw of it, it’s a quite nice place to visit. Stay tuned and thanks again to all for your support.

I had a wonderful time this past weekend ( July 15th, 16th, and 17th) speaking to the MUFON Phoenix Group in Arizona. Jim Mann, Stacey Wright, Chris Loomis, and a host of others really made the trip worthwhile. My presentation was well received and we all enjoyed the fellowship and a good meal afterwards. I am eternally grateful. I’m beginning to enjoy the desert!

The first night of the Republican Convention is over I write this and who knows what lies ahead. Whatever it is, it will no doubt be interesting. These are times of change and at times heart wrenching events have made this a summer to remember for quite awhile, if not forever for us as citizens of this country.

We have witnessed the anger, grief, horror, sadness, and despair at the level of violence in this country between its citizens of color and law enforcement, not to mention the violence occurring in other parts of the world. As we struggle to digest, process, and come to terms with what is occurring, the most natural question that arises is—What can we do? What can I do? How do we address the broken places in our culture and institutions. At times it appears that the center simply cannot hold. How can we collectively and individually contribute in a healing and beneficial way to the deeper and more authentic actions and conversations that are needed to begin to bridge the agonizing divides in our communities, our nation, and our world?

Our 7 Principles guide us and encourage us to to discover and embrace the truth within ourselves—to look honestly at our own shadow side as well as to embrace the light of love that resides within each and everyone of us. In this way we seek to raise our frequencies if you will, and to encourage others to do the same. We seek to create a chain reaction of compassion, empathy, safe spaces, and genuine, authentic community. Violence, hatred, racism, demonizing and blaming the other, and the fear that motivates all of these things, have no place in the world we envision and work towards on a daily basis. It is non-violence or non-existence for all of us on this planet. The threat is so very real now. We need to keep focusing on the world we want to create and realize that a new world is being born and the birth pangs that accompany this new world must occur. Growth at times means pain. We also need to have the courage to recognize, name, and to stand against these forces that are afraid of the future, both within ourselves and in the institutions and systems I our public life. We need to do this together.

Here are just a few suggestions of what we can commit to:

* Educate ourselves about the structures and dynamics of privilege; about the ways in which both overt and implicit racism and bias continue to permeate our society, and about the ways we consciously or unconsciously participate in maintaining these structures and dynamics.

*Become more vigilant about our own tendencies to turn those with whom we disagree with into the “other,” or to make sweeping negative generalizations about entire groups of people, and interrupting those tendencies every time we do notice them.

* Engage in a deeper conversation, especially with people we may see as different from ourselves—having the humility and the courage to inquire about, listen to, and care about their experiences and to share our own—seeking to discover and to lift up our shared humanity rather than to debate and to justify the “rightness” of our position.

* Maintaining a spiritual practice to reinforce and strengthen our resilience, and our connection to each other and ourselves and to keep this connection grounded in love.

* Be committed to serving and blessing others through our prayers and meditations, through our contemplations and inner compassion practices as well as through our engaging in outer actions in support of justice and peace.

May all of us, treat others and ourselves with loving kindness. Let us be gentle with ourselves during this time. May we be as aware of our own prejudices and judgments as much as we are aware of those of others. May we provide and be a safe space for others and may we acknowledge and understand our humanity, our fear, and use this knowledge of ourselves to create a better world—together.

May we always honor the inherent worth and dignity that resides within all of us.

As I write this column our nation is reeling from the senseless act of domestic terrorism that happened inside a night club in Orlando, Florida on Sunday, June 12th, 2016. When the dust settled, forty nine people were dead and fifty three were wounded. After weeping for the loss of life in private, there was a part of me that had to acknowledge that this happens everyday in some nations across the globe and now we too get a taste of what others experience. I felt this way after witnessing the events of September 11, when I was living in NY. This does not make it right by any means, but it does once again show just how small our planet is and how we are all a part of the interdependent web of life which our 7th principle affirms. In other words, what I do to my brother or sister I do too myself.

Having said this, keep in mind that there will be those who will attempt to exploit the event and the vulnerable communities that are LGBTQ and Muslim. Resist this temptation at all costs! Do not let the fear and anger consume you. Keep your heart open for it matters not how many doors close against you as long as your heart is open. Listen with more intent to your neighbor or family member in the days ahead. Cultivate compassion. Soak up the sun just a bit more and really see what nature has to offer us in this beautiful part of the country that we live in. Show gratitude for what we have, because tomorrow is never promised to any of us. Death smiles at each and every one of us and all we can do is smile back.

And in your grief, remember that life goes not backwards but forwards. There will always be those forces who want to hold on to some illusion of yesterday. These individuals see a world that is changing and they are full of fear for their vision, (whether it be just an illusion or not) is gradually drifting away. They will fight ruthlessly and mercilessly for their version of reality of how they believe the world should be. For those of us who want a more peaceful and equitable co-existence with our planet and each other, it stands to reason that we too must fight as well, perhaps with a bit more mercy and compassion, for our vision of what we thinkthe planet should look like as well. For life does indeed go on, but tragedy’s like this wake us up to the preciousness and the fragility of our lives, so that we may live the remainder of our days in deep appreciation and in gratitude.

We are in a strange season of pain in our nation and on the planet. The bottom cannot hold for a new world is being born and these birth pangs must occur. We struggle as human beings to make sense of it all. But just as the earth has her seasons, so we too have our personal seasons,the Seasons of the Self. Writer Max Coots reminds us:

No matter how well intentioned, we cannot know what is good for someone else. Life is a mystery. The Danish Christian philosopher Soren Kierkegaard reminds us that Life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived. He also said that life is lived forward but could only be understood backwards. Kierkegaard was a very wise man. I will use two stores to illustrate my point. A poor Chinese farmer who only had one broken down work horse to help him do his work. One day his horse got loose and ran away. His neighbors came around to offer their condolences on his bad luck, yet the farmer would only say, “Good luck, bad luck. It’s hard to say.” A week later, the horse returned, bringing with it five young stallions. Again, the neighbors convened to empathize with the farmer, this time to share their delight at his good fortune. Still, the famer simply said, “Good Luck, bad luck. It’s hard to say.”

The farmer’s young nephew was working to tame the wild horses and about a month later, the nephew fell and broke his leg. The neighbor’s came to commiserate, but still the old farmer would only reply, “Good Luck, bad luck. It’s hard to say.” Two weeks after the accident, war was declared and every able bodied young man was conscripted. The old farmer’s nephew was exempted because of the broken leg, so he was not involved in the battle in which every other young man from the village was killed. Good news, bad news. It’s hard to say.

The second illustration is a bishop on an ocean voyage who passed by a small island inhabited by three hermits. The bishop asked for the opportunity to go meet these men, and it was arranged.

As he spoke with the hermits he asked about their prayer practice and they replied, “ We pray as we always prayed— you are three, we are three, have mercy on us.” The bishop was horrified and proceeded to teach them a proper prayer— The Lord’s Prayer as taught in the Gospel of Matthew. It took nearly all day, but as the sun was setting the hermits seemed to have the prayer fairly will memorized and the bishop returned to his ship feeling quite good about himself and his endeavor.

That evening, he awoke to the sound of shouts on the deck. He immediately went topside only to see a golden glow moving toward him across the water. As it got closer, the bishop was amazed to see the three hermits, surrounded by a nearly blinding aura running on top of the water. “Reverend Father,” they called out, “ we are terribly sorry to trouble you, but soon after left we realized that we could not remember precisely the prayer you taught us today. Please return to teach us again.”

I am always somewhat amused when it comes to election season in this great land of ours, especially this year. There are many reasons for this, but for me personally, I am always intrigued when Americans seem to think that one individual with change all of the social, economic, political, ecological, and yes, even military challenges that face our nation and the world.

Now voters will never really come out and say that this is what they expect, but it sure seems to me that this is what their asking. It’s an impossible and unrealistic expectation in my humble opinion. We have a two party system in this nation. You get more choices when you purchase a pair of jeans. We have two political parties in this country and these two parties, both beholden to corporations, are supposed to somehow satisfy all of the needs of the people of this nation (and if you believe in the myth of “American Exceptionalism”) the entire globe. “Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished,” to coin a phrase Shakespeare’s, Hamlet, The Prince of Denmark.

Be that as it may, many of us get so caught up in the passion of the politics of the day, that instead of focusing on what is right, we argue over who is right. We can all respectfully disagree as human beings, can’t we? I’d like to think so. As a member of the Unitarian Universalist clergy, I am reminded every day that we don’t all have to think alike to love alike. There is an inherent worth and dignity in each and every human being. Let’s not lose sight of this as citizens of this nation and as citizens of the earth. As Universalist Minister Hosea Ballou so insightfully phrased it:

“If we agree in love, there is no disagreement that can do us any harm, but if we do not, no other agreement can do us any good.”